Alissa's 12th Birthday!!

Wednesday - August 13, 2014
I can't believe Alissa is 12 years old already!  Time is just going too fast.  All my little ones will be grown up in no time.  I can't handle that.  I love them being my little ones.  I can't imagine what it will be like when they are older.  I'm just going to live it up and enjoy every moment I have with them.
Missy, Brittany, Teresa, and Tyler spent the night, so they could be here for Alissa's birthday and we could go out and do more adventuring again today.  Normally, I decorate the living room and the kitchen for the kids' birthdays, but we were exhausted when we got home last night and it was too tricky to try and decorate around everybody sleeping in the living room.  I ended up just waking up early and quickly decorating the kitchen.  Since it would have been hard to travel with our cake and Alissa wants to have time to decorate her own cake, we decided to have donuts today, instead of cake.  We'll have cake another time (when Alissa has time to decorate it).  So, after Alissa woke up, Roger took her, her cousins, and Aunt Teresa to go get some yummy donuts for breakfast.  Roger made sure to buy a dozen doughnut holes.  We put a candle in each one and sang "Happy Birthday" to Alissa.  Then she blew out the candles.  This birthday was definitely different than she was used to, but it was still lots of fun.  We enjoyed our doughnuts, we let her open her gifts, then we packed up our stuff and headed to Lava Hot Springs to spend the day relaxing at the pool.  Alissa's gifts were very different from what she is used to also.  I normally try to get her a nice gift then a bunch of dinky, but fun gifts to fill in the gaps and make it look like she got a ton of presents.  This year, we just got her two gifts.  We spent more than we normally do on her birthday, but it looked like less, since the gifts she got were small sizes.  We got her her own set of scriptures with her name on the cover.  She's been wanting that for a long time.  So she was really excited about that.  The other gift we got her was a $30.00 gift card to Micheal's craft store.  She is super excited to go and use it.  I also got her some hair chalk that will color your hair for a little while and wash out really easily.  She was very happy with the gifts that she got.

I tried to take a picture of Alissa, Parker, and Brinley.  I could see each of their faces before I snapped the picture.  But as I pressed my finger down on the button to snap their picture, each one of them moved, jus perfectly enough for something to cover up each of their faces.  I just thought that was really funny and crazy how perfectly their timing was and how that worked out.

I asked Missy to video tape Alissa as we sang to her and while she blew out the candles.  She pointed the camera and hit the record button, but she couldn't figure out why she couldn't see anything.  We all had a good laugh when we looked over and saw the lens cap still on.  Silly Missy!

Here we are at Lava Hot Springs!

It was fun to stay over in the deep end and watch the people jumping off of the high dives.  There were two girls, standing on the highest platform, that were too afraid to go.  They kept walking to the edge, then backing away.  We watched them for a really long time before they finally got brave enough to jump.  

While we were watching, Missy informed us that this is where the you tube video of a girl falling from the platform took place.  I had never seen the video, but Teresa had seen it a lot.  When we all got out to eat lunch, I did a search for the video.  That is so scary!  Then I found the video in slow motion.

Anyway... so we all got out of the pool to eat some lunch.  I was going to take a picture of all of us when somebody walked by  and offered to take a picture with me in it also.  I was excited, because I don't usually get to be in the picture.  Here we all are!

Alissa wanted me to take a picture of her while she was standing on this floaty toy.  She kept trying to do it.  every time she successfully got on, I missed it.  So, she wanted me to keep snapping pictures until she finally did it.  I don't think I ever got the picture she was wanting me to take.

Tyler decided to go off the platforms.  So, I took pictures, of course.  This is him going off the first platform.

Alissa was really determined that she could stand on the floaty for a picture.  So, I just kept snapping away.

Tyler jumped off of the second platform.  This is the platform that the girl fell from.  He hesitated as he got to the edge, but still went for it.  It's hard to see the detail in the picture, but you can tell he was scared.  He refused to try the highest platform.  I can't blame him.  I won't even jump off of the lowest diving board.

 Here's more pictures of Alissa trying to do that trick still.

We had a lot of fun playing today.  Eventually, we got too tired.  Two days of being out in the sun swimming, was starting to take a toll on us all.  We left to head home around 4:00 pm.  We were exhausted!